All Entries Tagged With: "local chapters"
23 ACDIS Local Chapters
Wikpedia says the “23 Enigma refers to the belief that most incidents and events are directly connected to the number 23, some permutation of the number 23, or a number related to the
There's 23 local ACDIS chapters can we make it to 50?
number 23.” If that’s true, I wonder what it means for the Association of Clinical Documentation Specialists which now has 23 local chapter groups. We couldn’t be prouder of all the hard work individuals put in at the grassroots level.
There’s just so much going on with ACDIS-Local! (I just made that up: “ACDIS-Local.” Ha, sometimes I think I’m clever. Hey, I’ve got an idea, why don’t you post a comment and let me know if you can think of something a little more stirring than “ACDIS Local Chapters” or “ACDIS-Local.”)
June 19 meetings
First off let me give a shout-out to two group who are meeting tomorrow, Friday, June 19.
First, the Florida ACDIS Chapter meets from 2-4 p.m., at Tampa General Hospital hosted by none other than fellow blogger Sylvia Hoffman. Those who may have not RSVP’d could probably still listen but you’ll have to clear it with Sylvia first. She’s at 813/610-4818 or on e-mail at shoffman@tgh.org. There’s a lot on the agenda including the election of officers, a vote to become an “official” ACDIS Chapter, and the unveiling of the Florida ACDIS Web site.
Secondly, the New Jersey Chapter also meets Friday, June 19, at 2 p.m., at Reimbursement Review Associates, Inc., 385 West Ferris St. Rte. 18 South, East Brunswick, NJ. On the agenda for discussion are clinical guidelines and query policies for chronic heart failure which is always an important topic. New Jersey, too, will take up the discussion regarding whether to become an “official” ACDIS member. Deborah Gardner-Brown has kept a rigorous schedule for the NJ group so far, getting everyone together every month for a discussion of important topics. For the summer, however, New Jersey CDI specialists and Deborah get to take a little break—at least until September, she says. Contact Deborah directly for more information at 732/238-4511 or by e-mail at dgardnerbr@aol.com.
Florida ACDIS meeting scheduled for June
Doesn't Tampa General look beautiful?
The second Florida ACDIS meeting will be held on June 19, 2-6 p.m. at Tampa (FL) General Hospital. This meeting will concentrate on the future of Florida ACDIS and the role of Clinical Documentation. Darlene Shelffo, manager of CDI at TGH will unveil our new Florida ACDIS Web site.
There may be a few more surprises as well with the first ever election of officers. Members will be contacted by e-mail. Look on the ACDIS Web site for more information and updates. Mark your calendars and don’t be left out!
ACDIS 2nd annual conference, day two: What you need to know before you go
The second day of the conference will be as full as the first.
Invited local ACDIS chapter leaders don’t forget to come over to the Constantine Room on Emperors’ Level at 7 a.m., Friday, May 15 for breakfast and a quick meeting. We’ll talk about opportunities to grow local chapters, ways ACDIS can better facilitate chapter growth, and how ACDIS can better meet our chapters’ needs.
Also, the exhibit hall will be open at 7 a.m., so please swing by and chat with our generous exhibitors. Don’t miss the general session regarding RAC audits and the CDI role that starts at 8 a.m. with Catherine O’Leary, RN, BSN, managing director and founding partner at CSG Health Solutions, LLC.
I’m looking forward to attending “Understanding Medicare’s quality indicators” with Kristen Geissler, MA, PT, CPHQ at 9 a.m. and “Managing a clinical documentation department to excellence,” with Randi Ferrare, RN, BSN, MHA, at 10:45 a.m.
Lunch is “on your own” today. I recommend trying Caesars “food court” which they cleverly call the “Cypress Street Marketplace” for an inexpensive and fairly quick bite.
The exhibit hall will be open during lunch, from 12-1:30 p.m., and I’ll be munching and chatting if you want to swing by for a bit.
Don’t miss the closing general session, a panel discussion and open question and answer period from 2:30-3:30 p.m. Hopefully not too many of you will need to rush out of the final sessions to catch planes and whatnot.
The conference officially ends at 3:30 p.m. on Friday, but more than 100 of you will be up bright and early on Saturday for to take the Certified Clinical Documentation Specialist exam. The exam starts promptly at 8 a.m.
Northern Illinois chapter to meet Thursday
A typical hospital couldn't hold such a stellar collection of CDI staffers!
Edward Hospital & Health Services bills itself as being “for people who don’t like hopsitals.” So all you hospital-loving CDI professionals heading there for the Northern Illinois CDS meeting this Thursday, April 30, will have to envision yourself meandering more typical healthcare halls as you make your way to the Edward Heart Hospital’s conference room.
From 12:30-3 p.m., the group will gather to share CDI heartbreaks as well as those tips and tricks that make a professional’s pulse quicken. Best of all ACDIS Board Member Robert S. Gold, MD, will be on the phone to talk about CDI quality assessment and the future of CDS programs. The agenda includes networking and a Q & A session so don’t miss out.
ACDIS Chapter updates: New Jersey meets 4/24!
New Jersey’s fearless leader Deborah Gardner-Brown, RHIT, CCS, C-CDI, hosts the gathering at her facility in East Brunswick, Friday, April 24, at 2 p.m. This time the group will focus on the importance of Recovery Audit Contractor preparation in the CDI program. There’s only a limited amount of room around the conference table, so if you plan on attending please give her a call at 732/238-4511or drop her a quick e-mail Deborah@RRA-INC.Com.
Over in the New York City area there’s been a bit of talk about starting a local chapter but as any visitor or life-long resident knows, the Big Apple is a really big city. A so-called local meeting in downtown Manhattan might take residents of the city’s Queens neighborhood an hour or more of travel time to attend. That’s why Ann-Marie Carducci, RN, MPA, CPHQ, CPUR, CPC, CCS, director of utilization management at the Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx plans to join up with Deanna Holowczak at Riverside Healthcare System in Yonkers. Anyone in the New York City/Westchester County area of New York interested in joining them can e-mail acarducc@montefiore.org or dholowczak@riversidehealth.org.
Michelle L. Callahan hopes to start a segment of ACDIS over in Minneapolis, MN. A nurse by background, Callahan now works as the lead specialist in the HIM housed CDI program at the Hennepin County Medical Center. “I have been working with the program here at HCMC since its inception in 2005,” she says. “It is very challenging to find other programs in local hospitals, as the programs all have different names/titles and are housed in different departments.” If you are a CDI specialist in the Viking state (my big brother used to be on the Vikings in Pop-Warner football) please reach out and e-mail Michelle at Michelle.Callahan@hcmed.org.
Susan Tiffany RN, CDS, pulled out all the stops to organize an all-day regional CDI symposium Friday, May 29, 8 a.m.-2 p.m., at Pinnacle Health System at Harrisburg (PA) Hospital. On the agenda are
- Physician Documentation Criteria for Congestive Heart Failure
- RAC Risk Stratification
- Evolution to Paperless CDI Process through Automated Documentation
- Present on Admission
- How CMS Changes Impact Reimbursement for Pressure Ulcers
For information, e-mail her at Tiffany_Susan@guthrie.org.
ACDIS: 1,500 members ready to make a difference in healthcare delivery
I joined the Association of Clinical Documentation Improvement Specialist (ACDIS) as its associate director in November 2008, a little more than a year after its inception. By the close of 2008, more than 1,300 people had joined. In one, seven-day period—March 7-14—54 new members joined ACDIS. During the month of March, nearly 200 people had either become a new member or renewed their membership.
That raises ACDIS’ ranks to more than 1,500 CDI professionals. The growth is overwhelming.
We need to stop for a second and ask ourselves why CDI seems so important. It reminds me of a blog post from New Year’s Day, which considered whether the advancement of CDI might come to exemplify one of the more constructive modifications of our national healthcare system.
“CDI specialists do not merely examine documentation and chastise the errant physician for inappropriate verbiage or a misplaced descriptor,” I wrote at the time. “They facilitate communication across a community that has operated in silos for far too long. They open the door for discussion.”
Please click on this 22-second audio clip adapted from the Florida ACDIS Chapter’s inaugural meeting Friday, March 27. In it, Clare Garrard, RN, DSN,case management manager, at Morton Plant and Mease Dunedin, Clearwater, FL, expresses her belief in the power CDI professionals have to influence the type of healthcare being delivered today.
With a network of like-minded, dedicated professionals all empowered by the great opportunity they now possess it seems impossible that CDI would not impact change. It’s not sentimentality. It’s reality—1,500 members strong.
To learn more about ACDIS visit www.cdiassociation.com or call me at 781/639-1872 ext. 3711.
Birds of feather: ACDIS chapters start to soar
Let's get every state with the cardinal as its chosen mascot to start a CDI Chapter!
There’s been a number of additions to the roll of local ACDIS chapters. Most notably, we’ve received interest from Ohio and Virginia to meet with fellow members.
Imagine my surprise to find that both these states’ also call the cardinal their state bird. Look out North Carolina! As it turns out, seven states have the bright-hued aviator as the soaring emblem of their respective aviary prowess (and that’s not including state affinity for the bird associated with the names of sports teams St. Louis Cardinals nor the Arizona Cardinals).
Okay, so here’s a challenge. I put the call out to any clinical documentation improvement specialists from Indiana, Kentucky, and West Virginia (which all say the cardinal is their state bird, too) to start local ACDIS chapters in their neck of the woods. After all as the saying goes. . . birds of a feather. . . right?
Download this document for some tips for how to get a CDI chapter started including advice from state organizations which have been gathering for a few years now.
Click on this link to download a list of current local groups, meetings, and contact information.
CDI chapter developments
We’ve learned about a number of new CDI local chapters since CDI Strategies hit e-mail inboxes this morning. (If you do not already subscribe to the free e-newsletter what are you waiting for? It’s free. And there’s lots of good information in there. Yes, I write it. That’s why I’m saying. . . )
If you have a hankering for some Maryland Blue Crab, take a trip to the “Old Line State” (that’s it’s nickname, the World Wide Web wouldn’t lie!) for the Friday, March 20, from 1:30-3 p.m., for the Maryland Hospital Association (MHA) CDS Workgroup meeting.
Maryland has had a local CDS Chapter in place since July 2006, according to MHA CDS Workgroup co-chair Denise Otto RHIT, CCS. The group meets bi-monthly, the third Friday of the month. Contact Denise Otto at dotto@marylandgeneral.org or her co-chair James Nagel, at jen.01@ex.uchs.org.
And over in Seattle, Joan Kloster, RN, Clinical Documentation Specialist at Overlake Hospital Medical Center in Bellevue, WA, is interested in starting a group. Contact her at joan.kloster@overlakehospital.org
Meetings this month
The second NE Regional CDS meeting will be held next Thursday, February 26, from 1:15-3:30p.m. at Norwood Hospital in Norwood, MA. Click on the documents here for more information.
The North Carolina Chapter meets at Gaston Memorial Hospital on Friday, February 27, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. For information, contact Leah Taylor, RN, clinical documentation specialist at Iredell Memorial Hospital in Statesville, NC, at leah.taylor@iredellmemorial.org.
Editor’s Note: Click on the “more” button below for an alphabetical listing by state of specialists who are interested in, or currently are, hosting local CDI meetings. Please reach out these generous individuals if you are interested in joining them. As always, feel free to contact ACDIS by e-mailing Melissa Varnavas at mvarnavas@cdiassociation.com or by phone at 781-639-1972 ext. 3711.
Social networking: Are you ‘LinkedIn’?
Hi folks, I am working on getting ACDIS set up on Facebook and LinkedIn. Do you guys use this stuff?
A friend of mine who works for a New York City television production company got me on Facebook about two years ago. She posted a few photos and “poked” me a few times. The whole thing baffled me.
My coworkers here at HCPro “invited” me join LinkedIn, explaining it was the “professional” social networking site. I joined, invited others, got “recommended” and filled out my “profile.” But I didn’t understand that anymore than anyother networking site.
In the past few months, however, I’ve come to realize the intrinsic value of these Internet Age wonders. Here’s an analogy that won’t age me too much: Remember how exciting it was to receive a letter in the mail. It felt like openi’ ng presents on Christmas. Someone cared enough about you, and their relationship with you, to share their time and a piece of their lives with you. That was old-school letter writing. When e-mail came around a simple “ping” could make heart feel the same way.
Now we use e-mail for all sorts of communication both personal and professional. Depending on your perspective that “ping” could warm your heart or make you squeamish but there’s no denying the pervasive nature of the communication medium. The same is true now for social networking tools like Facebook and LinkedIn. These sites represent a new way to share our lives with each other.
For example, when researching the social networking tool “Twitter” (I’ll get into that later) I posted a short sentence about it on Facebook. A half dozen “friends” responded with informative articles and constuctive Web sites to help get me up to speed. We can make great use of these tools as clinical documentation improvement profession continues to grow.
So, yes, I’ve gone ahead and created a new LinkedIn group account for the Association of Clinical Documentation Improvment Specialists. If you’re on the site please post an interesting article you’ve read recently or post a question or comment you might otherwise have asked on ACDIS’ CDI Talk group.
Let’s put this new technology to work for us!
New Orleans CDIS Chapter 2009 meeting dates set!
Greater New Orleans CDIS Chapter unmasks dates for 2009 meetings.
In December of 2007, Melissa Mayer, RN, BS, and her two other CDI colleagues at East Jefferson General Hospital in Metairie, LA, were new to the world of clinical documentation improvement. “It was very nice,” Mayer said. “We decided to keep the meetings relatively informal.”
“We were longing for contact with the outside world so to speak,” Mayer said in an e-mail.
The program director sent out notices to other healthcare facilities in the area and voila the Greater New Orleans Chapter of CDIS was born.
The group held it’s first meeting with about 12 invitees at a local restaurant on August 7, 2008.
At that first meeting the members shared query forms, compared work routines and productivity expectations. And they decided to meet every other month! So, the second meeting quickly got underway in November with an extended contact list and a bit more formal agenda.
They kept the ever-other-month meeting schedule but asked each facility to sign up to host a meeting, arrange the location, and organize the presentation based on feedback from the group. For example, the November meeting featured a discussion of decubitus ulcers coding changes and the changes East Jefferson General Hospital made to adjust.
“We are looking forward to the next meeting and we are very glad to have established such a resource in addition to using the ACDIS Web site,” Mayer said.
The Greater New Orleans Area CDIS Chapter set the following meeting dates:
- March 11
- May 13
- July 8
- September 9
- November 11
The time is usually 4-6 p.m. However, the location is not set for each date yet. If you’re ready to join the New Orleans CDIS fun, says Mayer, feel free to contact her at melissamayer@ejgh.org, or her colleagues Royceann Fugler at rfugler@ejgh.org or Lindy Sells at Lsells@ejgh.org.